LateNightHacking Louis My Writing

Auth

1999-11-19

Of course, it had to have been a kid who did it first. No grownup would have tried it because it couldn't possibly have worked. Everyone knows you can't trap a rabbit under a teacup. But then again, this wasn't an ordinary rabbit.

The creatures were first seen about five years ago in the garden of a Mrs. Sanchez in Detroit. At first it was just something for the tabloids. "Mysterious creature seen in neighborhood garden" proclaimed the Weekly World News. Soon it was something for the headlines. "Mysterious Creatures Invade Suburb, Scientists Offer No Answers" heralded the New York Times. The animals were definitely there. They were similar to the animals we all know and love, yet completely different. One looked like a giant yellow chinchilla. Another looked like orange fox with five tails. yet another looked like a miniature white pony with a firey red and orange mane. A few looked like miniature dinosaurs. They had eaten begonias, knocked over trash cans, and wizzed on tires. They had been seen and photographed, heard and recorded. Mrs. Sanches had started feeding the peculiar fox on her back step, and her son Carlos named it Señor Cinco Colas. Carlos claimed it had once eaten from his hand. Yet, with all this attention, no one had been able to capture one. Everything had been tried. Snares didn't work - the creature would just wiggle free. Cages didn't work either. No one had been able to figure out how, but each creature would just "wiggle" though the walls and appear on the other side, free as a lark and snickering at its would-be captor.

One day a man named Mr. Powell reached in to the pocket of his large coat to get his gloves and was surprised to pull out a furry yellow creature. He dropped the thing when it shocked his hand. The media quickly picked up on the story, and despite the pleading of the of biologists, the name pocket monsters stuck.

The pocket monsters were quickly spreading throughout the nation. They seemed to like areas where humans lived, but backpackers claimed to have seen them deep in the wilderness. Zoologists studying the creatures had identified over fourteen different species, and new ones were still being discovered. The common belief was that they were aliens. Many claimed they had found the ladning site of the alien's space ship, but none of the claims held up to investigation. For two months it was be strongly believed that the aliens had landed in the side lot of a Mr. Takagishi. Supported by the his neighbors' stories of a loud crash and intense heat and light from what could only be a plummeting interstellar vessel, Mr. Takagishi claimed to have the wreckage of the pocket monsters' space ship in his yard.A Sixty Minutes investigation later revealed the twisted metal was the remains of Mr. Tagakishi's Ford Pinto which he had blown up with a high temperature explosive in hopes of collection the insurance.

Panic didn't really start until one of the creatures, which looked like a fat lizard, breathed fire at an old lady's dog and ate barbecued poodle for dinner. Attempts to capture the monsters became more desperate, but just a futile. Pocket monster extermination agencies began to pop up, but no one was sure if you could kill a pocket monster or not. Any wounded monsters seemed to just twist out of existence, not to be seen for weeks or even longer. No dead bodies were ever found, which even further confounded the biologists. When Ted Turner offered a reward of a million dollars to the first person to capture one of the creatures and deliver it to him, pokemon fever took hold of the nation for the first time. More mouse traps were invented in that month that ever before in the history of this inventive country, but the pocket monsters remained as elusive as always. Some species of pocket monsters became more rare as they avoided the frenzied trappers, while some of the pokemon seemed to delight in tormenting humans.

Rob Thorton believed he had trapped a pokemon in a titanium mesh cage baited with anchovy paste, but it turned out that the turtle-like pokemon had jumped into the cage of its own free will. Mr. Thorton tied the cage in the bed of his truck, and was quite surprised when he opened the door to the cab and found the turtle like creature sitting in the driver's seat.

It was Jimmy Oak and Billy Taylor who first figured out how to capture a pokemon. Jimmy convinced Billy that they could catch a pokemon with a tuna can propped up on edge by a small twig. They tied a piece of string to the twig and hid in the bushes, giggling, as they waited for a pokemon. Their antics managed to attract the attention of a small, brown, fox-like pokemon. It was almost a foot tall, and anyone could see that it could knock over the can easily. The boys didn't see any problem, however, and when the creature stuck its nose under the can, they pulled on the string. The can fell down and the animal made a startled cry. The boys jumped out from their hiding place and ran excitedly to the can. They had trapped a pokemon! Jimmy lifted the can just slightly and saw a nose and a paw try to poke out, but hit clamped the tuna can down again. They had done it!

Jimmy and Billy ran inside to ask Mrs. Taylor what foxes liked to eat. Mrs. Taylor said that she wasn't certain, but she figured foxes probably eat mice. Jimmy and Billy decided to try to find a mouse in the pantry, but came away with a box of bacon flavored crackers instead. Returning to their captive, the boys peeked under the can again. When a nose appeared, they gave it a cracker. The little pocket monster grabbed the cracker and retreated back under the can to gobble it down. The boys kept feeding crackers to the to the fox pokemon, eventually allowing it out from under the can. They played happily with it, as it seemed to be content to stay with them while they were feeding it crackers. Billy decided to name it Eevee because of the noises it made.

When Mrs. Talor called the boys for dinner, they waved goodbye to their new friend and ran inside with the box of crackers. Half way throuh dinner, they were disturbed by loud cries from the backyard. "Eeeeevee! Eeeeeeeevee!" The boys ran to look and found the fox pokemon sitting on the tuna can and whining pitifully. It was Billy who had the next bright idea. He pulled out his silly putty egg and removed the silly putty. He kneeled down and held the open plastic egg out to the little fox pokemon. Eevee hopped into the egg and disappeared inside as Billy snapped the two halves together. They walked back inside, arguing about who would get to keep the egg. Mrs. Taylor chastized them for running off from the table before they had finished, and the argument was temporarily forgotten. Mrs Taylor would have missed the whole incident completely if she hadn't been called by the Jimmy's principal the next day because of the ruckus caused when Jimmy and Billy showed off their pokemon at school. Jimmy and Billy got in trouble with their teacher and their parents, but they were now famous around the school yard and soon to be famous around the nation.

Yes, only a kid would discover that a pokemon can only be held by a container smaller than the pokemon itself. A grown up would never have tried it.